(Never) Believe It's Not So
by TheFreakWithTheWings
Summary: Something suspicious is going down at the Ministry. A Halloween fic.


A/N: Happy Halloween!

0o0o0

Like every morning, Hermione woke up at 6:30 and turned on her coffee maker with a flick of her wand. She got in the shower and was clean ten minutes later. She dried herself off with magic, put product in her hair, and got dressed. Her coffee had cooled off by then, and she drank it while she read a chapter of her current book - a muggle textbook on neuroscience - to finish waking herself up. She made herself buttered toast for breakfast, brushed her teeth, put on her navy robe, checked her appearance one more time, then Flooed to work.

After the war, people had scrambled to offer Harry Potter and his friends any job they wanted, regardless of whether or not they had graduated from Hogwarts. Harry had become an auror, although Hermione suspected he would quit to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts when the current professor retired. Ron and Ginny had both gone on to play professional quidditch, Ginny for the Hollyhead Harpies and Ron for the Chudley Cannons. Luna had taken over the Quibbler, which was more popular than ever with a decorated war hero as editor-in-chief. Neville was working on his Herbology apprenticeship under Professor Sprout.

Hermione herself had initially thought about going to work for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to work on gaining more rights through more forgiving laws. But then Unspeakable Croaker had approached her about working for the Department of Mysteries, just on a trial run. Not everyone had what it took to push the known bounds of magic, after all, and if she hadn't liked it then she would have been free to go. Hermione's first and greatest love was knowledge though, and she took to magical research like a hippogriff takes to ferrets.

The first weeks had been difficult; she still had the scar from where Dolohov had cursed her the last time she had been in the Department. Also, all the false research stating that muggleborns had stolen their magic had to have come from somewhere.

Despite all that, Hermione soon found herself looking forward to going into work every day.

She had started off in the space department, and for the past few years she had been looking into dark matter and how it interacted with magic.

Unlike the rest of the wizarding world, the Department of Mysteries required its employees to keep up with muggle science. Hermione had gone above and beyond that, enrolling in a university using school records falsified by the Ministry. SHe had just finished her degree in astrophysics when she was transferred to the brain room. More than a little upset that she wouldn't get to continue working with dark matter - it was so fascinating - Hermione had to go back to university, this time double majoring in neuroscience and genetics.

The Department had initially been a little reluctant to let her use a time turner to both attend school and work, but she pointed out that they had let her use it when she was thirteen and under the supervision of a teacher, so why couldn't she use it now, when she was older, under the supervision of the Department? They had already made more after the time turners were destroyed in her fifth year, so she was given one with a warning: misuse of it would see her fired.

After the war, the Ministry had put new security measures into place. Every employee, from the lowliest clerk to the Minister himself, wore a badge that was spelled to allow them entrance to the building while at the same time keeping track of who was inside.

Hermione pulled out her badge and handed it to the security officer, idly watching while he cast the charm required to scan her badge.

The security guard frowned and cast the charm again.

"I'm sorry miss, but could you just hold on one second?" the guard requested while he wrote something down. He folded the paper into an airplane, which flew off towards the elevator.

"Is something wrong?" Hermione asked, her brow furrowing.

"It's probably nothing, but," the guard glanced over at the elevator then back at her. "Are you sure you work here?"

"What?" Hermione blinked, surprised. "Yes, yes I'm sure I work here. I've been here for a little over four years."

The security guard looked skeptical. "Really? 'Cause I don't remember seeing you around."

"Do you not even recognize me?" she asked. Normally Hermione loathed the fame that came with being one of the best friends of Harry Potter, but she would use it if she had to.

"Why, are you some sort of model?" the guard laughed at his own poor attempt at a joke.

At that moment, Harry came stumbling out of one of the fireplaces.

"Oh, Harry, thank Merlin, you've got to help me. This man won't let me in, and I've got so much to prepare for the Halloween party tomorrow and -"

"I'm sorry," Harry interrupted, squinting at her through his glasses. "Do I know you?"

Hermione's jaw clenched in anger. "Harry James Potter, if you think that's funny -"

"Look," Harry cut in _again._ "I don't appreciate having fans stalk me in the workplace, or at all really. If you leave now, I won't press charges."

Hermione choked on indignation. "A fan? You think I'm a fan? What the hell Harry, have you somehow forgotten everything we've been through for the past ten years?"

Harry's face hardened. "Call the DMLE," he told the security guard.

"Already done sir," the guard said.

"Wait," Hermione said. "Wait. You _don't_ remember me. You don't _remember_ me. You don't remember _me._ "

"Yes, we already established that," Harry snapped.

"I need to speak with my boss, Unspeakable Croaker," she stated, ignoring Harry. Someone had clearly tampered with his brain if he didn't remember her - _just like your parents_ , a dark part of her whispered - and Croaker was the leading expert on how different magics affected the brain. Rumor had it that his current project was a countercurse to the obliviate spell.

So now you're claiming to be an Unspeakable," the guard jeered. "What next, one of the heroes of the second war with You-Know-Who?"

Hermione sighed and refrained from saying that she was, actually, thank you very much. "I promise that I will explain everything if you let me speak to Unspeakable Croaker."

Harry's eyes narrowed, and he examined her for a moment, searching for something.

Whatever he was hoping to see, he must have found it because he turned to the guard and said "Send and owl to Unspeakable Croaker asking him to please come up here, and cancel the order for the DMLE. Thanks."

After a few tense minutes, the elevator behind the security guard's desk dinged and released Croaker.

Croaker was a tall man, and he was very muscular for a man whose temples were streaked with grey. His face was harsh, accentuated by his short, spiky black hair, which matched the color of his short goatee, and the eyepatch he wore over his right eye. Unlike Moody, Croaker preferred to go without a magic eye; he had other spells woven into the eyepatch.

"What seems to be the problem Auror Potter?" he asked pleasantly. He had an Australian accent.

"This woman," Harry gestured to Hermione. "Claims to be one of your employees."

Croaker squinted at her. "I've never seen her before in my life."

"Are you sure?" Hermione asked, feeling the beginning flutters of panic in her stomach before she forced them down. "Are you absolutely sure you don't recognize me sir?"

"I'll swear on anything you want me to that I've no idea who you are. Sorry miss." he said, shrugging.

"Please, I've worked for you for more than four years now, most of it in the space room studying dark matter, but I was recently transferred to the brain room. My name is Hermione Granger. Please, could you check your records, just to be sure?"

Croaker sighed and ran a hand down his face. "Someone was probably tampering with a prefrontal cortex or a temporal lobe. Alright. I'll look, but I can't let you come in today. If it turns out you do work for us, then consider it a paid vacation. If not, then you'd better watch out for the aurors."

Hermione nodded. "Thank you sir."

She glanced over at Harry, but he was studiously avoiding eye contact, so Hermione walked back to the Floo and went home.

0o0o0

Hermione woke up late the next day. She didn't have any classes on Friday, and she couldn't go into work. Today would have been a good day for it too. Magic always worked differently on Halloween - no one knew why- and studying the effects of it was fascinating. She didn't even bother preparing for the Halloween party later; her friends had probably all forgotten about her.

With nothing pressing to do all day, Hermione decided to read ahead a little in her textbooks and a few upcoming assignments done.

It was peaceful work, and soon Hermione found that she was glad for the day off. Of course, that was when the giant tortoise patronus appeared in her kitchen.

"Vampires have taken over the Ministry. You must go back two days and ask me about vampires," the patronus said in Croaker's voice before disappearing.

"What?" Hermione stared at the spot where the patronus had faded.

How had vampires taken over the Ministry? They were relatively weak; even a student could defeat one with an incendio.

Of course, it was Halloween, and magic did work differently on October thirty first.

On the bright side, Croaker sending her his patronus meant that he had found record of her in the Department of Mysteries. Maybe the memory problem was somehow related to time travel and the vampires.

Four days a week, Hermione lived each day twice. Traveling back in time was a regular part of her life. Yet, every time she pulled out her time turner she got butterflies in her stomach.

This time was no different. Hermione sucked a breath in and slowly let it out before turning the time turner exactly forty eight times.

Time flickered around her as she was launched backwards through it.

Only a few things had changed between Wednesday and Friday. The dishes were different, her book on neuroscience was in a new place, and a homework assignment that she had already finished was spread across the table.

There were other versions of herself here today, and she didn't remember seeing herself on Wednesday. Therefore, it would be important to avoid contact with herself.

Hermione got into the Ministry without any trouble this time, and she swiftly made her way into the Department of Mysteries then Croaker's office.

Head Unspeakable Croaker didn't appear to be all that surprised to see her. When Hermione walked into his office, he glanced at her, furrowed his brows, then turned to squint at a painting of an octopus-like shape with numerous glowing colored dots moving on it. When he was done examining it he looked back to her.

"When are you from Granger?" he asked.

"Two days from now. But how did you know?"

Croaker smirked and leaned back in his desk chair. "You don't get to be Head of this Department without picking up a few tricks. So why have you come back to now?"

"Apparently, vampires are going to attack the Ministry on Halloween," Hermione said.

"Apparently? So you didn't see it happen?" Croaker asked, his right eyebrow raised.

"No," Hermione sighed and all but collapsed into the chair on her side of his desk. "You gave me the day off because no one could remember me and my badge wasn't in the system."

"Now why would I do that?" he pondered.

Hermione shrugged. "You sent me a patronus telling me that vampires had attacked the Ministry and that I need to go back two days and ask you about them."

"Well, I can tell you why you will be erased from everyone's memory, even if I don't know how you did it. Vampires are natural legilimens - if they want, they only need one look to glimpse a person's mind. If their king was still around they would be able to control people with their eyes, but we threw him in the Veil more than a hundred years ago," Croaker explained.

"That is-" Hermione swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. "Well, that is good to know. But why would they try to take the Ministry? Simple spells are lethal to them."

"Hmm," Croaker leaned forward and began to stroke at his goatee.

"What if they're planning on using the shift in magic on Halloween for something," Hermione suggested.

"Yes, they probably want to free Dracula."

"Dracula!" she exclaimed. "He's real?"

One side of Croaker's mouth twitched slightly upward. "He was their king."

Hermione took in a deep breath and slowly let it out. "Okay, so they want to break Dracula free on Halloween. Is that possible?"

"If it was possible, then the vampires would be restored to their full strength, and we would have another war on our hands. However, whoever they send through the Veil is only going to be able to bring back the last person that went through it."

"And wizards stopped using it to execute people 400 years ago," Hermione jumped in, her thoughts whirling.

"They made an exception for Dracula; apparently it was the only way they could get rid of the undead bastard," Croaker explained.

"Dracula wasn't the last one to go through the Veil though, that was Sirius Black," she said.

Croaker's face crinkled into a smile. "I remember that kid. I tried to recruit him once, him and those friends of his, but Dumbledore got to them. I was glad to hear he was innocent."

"Shall I get the paperwork started to reverse his declaration of death?" Hermione's face was stretched into an answering grin. She couldn't wait to tell Harry the good news.

"Right, and after your past self goes home for the day I'll remove you from the system and then you cast the memory charm so that the vampires remain oblivious to what we've figured out. You'll have to ambush them," Croaker said as he stood from his chair.

Hermione rose at the same time. "Why will I be ambushing them?"

"We don't want to risk Mr. Black being turned after he is resurrected, and the Department of Mysteries doesn't take kindly to intruders." Croaker clenched his jaw in anger.

"Don't worry sir, I know just the thing that will help me," Hermione reassured him, thinking of Harry's invisibility cloak.

0o0o0

Not surprisingly, getting the paperwork to get someone legally declared alive again was a difficult process. The clerk at the desk was particularly unhelpful.

"I'm sorry Unspeakable Granger, but unless you yourself are the one who has come back from the dead, then I can't give you the forms," the clerk said, the hints of a smirk around his mouth.

"The person who needs the forms isn't back yet, but the Department has been forewarned. Therefore, we decided to get a bit of a head start on the paperwork," Hermione explained, her patience beginning to fracture.

The clerk shrugged elegantly, the picture of innocence. "I really wish I would help you, but there's nothing I can do. It's Ministry policy."

Hermione snapped in the face of his smugness. She slammed her the palms of her hands onto his desk and loomed over him. "Draco Malfoy, you know very well that the Department of Mysteries is not governed by Ministry policy. Now get me those forms, or, so help me Merlin, you will not enjoy the consequences."

Draco paled, and he hurriedly stood from his desk and stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over his chair. A moment later he was calm again, casually straightening his robes.

"Alright, alright, I'll get the paperwork. No need to get your knickers in a twist," he muttered.

Hermione forced a smile and removed her hands from his desk, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Thank you."

Her only answer was the click of the door swinging shut behind Malfoy.

He returned an hour later, his arms filled with forms. Hermione could feel exhaustion setting in just looking at them.

Malfoy dumped the lot in her lap with a gleeful grin. "Have fun with the paperwork Unspeakable Granger."

"The Department of Mysteries thanks you for your assistance," she said before striding out the door, heading back to her office, her arms laden with paperwork.

Five eye-achingly exhausting hours later, Croaker poked his head into her office.

"Time to go wipe yourself from our memories. I've removed you from the system, and the other you has gone home for the day," he said, sounding far too cheerful.

Hermione rubbed at her eyes with a groan. "Do you know how much paperwork is needed to get someone's death certificate reversed? A lot. Why do we even have forms for things like this?"

Croaker shrugged as Hermione stood up and left her office, falling into step beside her. "I think this is the first time we've ever had to use it for an actual resurrection, but it's there because Halloween is a strange day and the unexpected is normal down here."

"Then why are there Ministry policies on rescinding death certificates?"

"Things like Polyjuice Potion make it real easy for a conman to claim to be someone who just passed away," Croaker said while they waited for the doors to stop spinning.

He cast the spell that let them see which door led to which room.

"Good luck Granger, and don't worry, you'll still have a job even if I don't remember you at first," he said before going through the door that led to his office.

Hermione chose to go through the exit; she needed to borrow Harry's invisibility cloak before she erased all memories of her.

Harry wasn't at his desk; his partner, Alicia Wood, told her that he was training the new recruits. Hermione considered leaving him a note, but he wouldn't remember her soon. It would just confuse him. She borrowed the cloak knowing he would think someone stole it, but she needed it to prevent another war from starting four years after the last one. She wasn't sure whether or not the vampires would be able to use the unique loopholes in the laws of magic to get more than just Sirius out of the Veil.

With Harry's invisibility cloak secured, Hermione returned to the Department of Mysteries to begin wiping people's memories of her.

0o0o0

Only one person was working in the brain room by the time Hermione got to it. Penelope Clearwater was working with the areas of the brain related to sight, from what she could remember.

"I thought you left," the other woman remarked, not looking up from her work.

"I had an idea," Hermione replied. It wasn't the first time she had stayed late at work to pursue an idea, and it wouldn't be the last.

Penelope hummed in response, already caught up in her work again.

Hermione scooped one of the brains into its own tank and retrieved a few sheets of paper, some ink, and a quill in order to write down her thoughts.

Sometime tonight, she would figure out a way to erase all traces of herself from the memories of everyone who worked at the Ministry, at the very least. She knew she could do it - she had seen the evidence of her success - but the how was eluding her. She didn't have the time to personally erase everyone's memory, not like she had with her parents.

 _Was it even worth it?_ she wondered. No one had been able to crack the code to a cure for obliviation yet, so all of her friends who worked in the Ministry would permanently forget her.

She had friends outside the Ministry though, and Hermione was certain she could become friends with the others again.

Her mind made up, Hermione devoted herself to the problem in front of her.

The true problem was not in casting the spell, she knew it well enough. The real issue was covering everyone. If she could somehow link all the minds of the Ministry workers together, then she would just have to obliviate one person and have it reach everyone she needed. The only charm that could do that was the Protean charm though, and she needed direct access to the things she was charming to cast it.

Much like science, magic operated by a series of rules. These rules were unbreakable, except on certain nights, such as Halloween. On Halloween, belief was a much stronger factor in whether or not magic would work than any of the rules.

Mothers sacrifice themselves for their children frequently in times of war, and yet those children still succumb to the Killing Curse. Except on Halloween, when a mother's love for her son made her believe that if she died, he would live. Lily Potter sacrificed herself, believing that on Halloween, and so Harry Potter survived the Killing Curse.

Hermione had taken advantage of the Halloween loophole before, although she hadn't known at the time. She had just believed that Harry Potter would be able to defeat a mountain troll, and he had. Sure, he'd had help, but three eleven year olds taking down an adult mountain troll was an anomaly. She'd done research after the incident, wanting to know everything she could about trolls. The books had all agreed that adults struggled to take down fully grown mountain trolls, but Hermione had just chalked it up to luck. It wasn't until she joined the Department that she learned any different.

Unfortunately, Halloween was two days from now, so Hermione wouldn't be able to take advantage of that loophole. Unless…

One of the first things that any time traveler learned was that while they were out of their own time, they were essentially in stasis. They could get injured and die, but they wouldn't age until the had returned to the day from which they left. The Unspeakables who worked in the time room loved to tell a story of the first witch to time travel: she went back 400 years and crumbled into dust upon her return.

If Hermione herself was in stasis, stuck as if she was still on Halloween, then maybe the loophole would apply to her.

Believing with everything she had that all the minds of the people who worked in the Ministry were linked, Hermione cast the Protean charm.

The next thing she needed to do was erase all memories of herself from the control brain. Hermione resisted the urge to lay her head down and groan when she realized that the control brain didn't have any memories of her to get rid of.

"Hey Penelope," she called out, catching the attention of the other woman.

"What do you need?"

"Can I borrow one of your memories? I need it for my research."

"Sure," Penelope pulled out her wand. "What memory do you need?"

"Any one that has me in it."

Penelope raised an eyebrow. "Dare I ask why?"

Hermione shrugged. "I'm not even sure my idea will work."

"Fair enough." Penelope summoned a bottle, withdrew a silvery strand of memory from her head, and placed it in the bottle. "Here. Good luck."

Hermione flashed her coworker a smile as she grabbed the bottle from the other woman's outstretched hand. "I really appreciate this."

Penelope smiled and turned back to her work.

Hermione carefully inserted the memory into the control brain. She let it sit for a few minutes so that the brain could properly absorb it, then she erased the memory before activating the Protean charm.

Everything seemed to work, but she needed to test it to make sure.

She carefully snuck up behind Penelope and tapped her on the shoulder. "Excuse me?"

Penelope whirled around and squinted at her. "Who are you? Unauthorized people are not permitted to be in the Department of Mysteries."

Hermione swallowed down her triumphant 'yes' before responding. "I'm Croaker's new apprentice; I got a little lost. Do you think you could show me where he works?"

"Nope, sorry, I have to escort you out now," Penelope said, grabbing her on the upper arm.

"Okay, can I just grab my stuff?"

"Be fast."

Hermione hurried back to her station, fighting down a grin. It had worked!

She quickly gathered up her things then returned to where Penelope was waiting. The other woman silently escorted her out of the Department of Mysteries, but when they started heading in the direction of the DMLE, Hermione knew she had to get out.

"I really need to use the bathroom, could you just give me a minute?" she asked, stepping away from the other woman.

"Sure, they're just down there," Penelope pointed.

Hermione headed that way, with Penelope watching her the entire time. As soon as she neared another corridor, Hermione ducked into it and pulled the invisibility cloak over her head.

Penelope came running after her, wand at the ready. She glanced around, trying to find Hermione, then cursed and headed back to the Department of Mysteries when she couldn't find her.

Hermione followed the other woman back to the Department of Mysteries, but she took the door that led to the offices rather than the brain room.

She had a light dinner from the food she kept stashed in her desk then got back to work on filling out the forms for Sirius' return.

A tempus charm a few hours later told her that it was actually much later than she had expected; she had thought that it was around 8 pm but it was 11 pm. She packed everything in and on her desk into a conjured box then transfigured her desk into a bed. A piece of paper became a blanket, a pencil was turned into a pillow, and her robes became pajamas. Hermione locked her door and went to sleep.

0o0o0

The squeak of her office door woke Hermione the next morning. She sat up, rubbing at her eyes and suppressing a yawn. Croaker was staring at her from the doorway.

"Time travel?" he asked.

Hermione nodded. "You can't know why yet, though."

"Okay," he blinked, the only sign that he might have been disturbed. "I'll go get you some breakfast."

"Thanks."

Hermione set to returning her office to its previous state while he was gone. Croaker returned with a bagel and a cup of coffee.

"Bless you," she said as she took the food from him.

"I expect a full report when this mess is done," he said before leaving the room.

Hermione finished the paperwork halfway through the day, so she pulled on the invisibility cloak and headed out to the Ministry's library to research vampires.

On her way there, she passed Malfoy's desk, so she snatched the apple off his desk to eat.

She spent the rest of the day in the library, only taking a break to eat dinner. Hermione returned to her office, her mind abuzz with information on vampires, before she went to sleep.

The next day, she waited until noon to approach her boss. He was in his office, going over something, when she walked in.

"I need you to send other me a patronus telling me that vampires are in the Ministry and that I need to go back two days and ask you about them," she said before he had a chance to do more than look up from his desk.

Croaker raised his right eyebrow. "Do you require anything else, your Majesty?"

Hermione sighed. "I'm about to catch up to my present, and the thing that sent me back was your patronus telling me that."

"Alright. Where will you be then?"

"I'm going to take care of the vampire problem," she said, then she pulled on the invisibility cloak and left, heading for the death room.

The vampires were already in there when she arrived. All of them were pasty, with greasy dark hair and black clothes. Looking at them, Hermione was uncomfortably reminded of Snape. It was hardly an invading force though; there were only five young vampires. Maybe there were more in other parts of the Ministry, although Hermione doubted it. Croaker occasionally gave in to dramaticism, and his description of an invading vampire force was likely just that.

The vampires were debating over who would be the one to go through the Veil.

"I nominate Vlad," one said.

"Hey!" another one protested. "Why can't you go get our king, Lestat?"

Dear Merlin, these were the worst kind of vampires: ones that had read a lot of vampire literature after they were turned and thought they were invincible.

They finally decided that one named Obsidian (she resisted the urge to palm her face when she heard his name) would be the one to go through the Veil, although Obsidian didn't seem to be too happy with their choice. The other four tied a rope around his waist then shoved him into the Veil. The rope immediately went taught.

"Pull, Asphodel, pull," Vlad shouted.

One of the women slapped him upside the head then went back to pulling. They heaved with all their might, so when Obsidian fell out of the Veil with a man in his arms they all tumbled to the ground.

Hermione dropped the invisibility cloak. "You are all under arrest for illegal trespass in the Department of Mysteries."

"Where'd she come from?" Lestat groaned.

"I am authorized to use force if necessary," she warned them.

Asphodel twisted to her feet and lunged at Hermione, hissing through overly large fangs.

" _Solaris_!" Hermione shouted. A bright burst of simulated sunlight shot from the end of her wand.

The vampires started screaming and clutching at their eyes. Hermione quickly used a spell to bind them with ropes, then checked on Sirius.

Sirius was unconscious, and Hermione didn't know enough about magical medicine to treat him. Therefore, she levitated all six of them behind her and left the death room.

Croaker was waiting for her. "Good work Granger. I'll take them from here."

"I think Sirius Black may need medical attention sir," she said as she passed the vampire prisoners over to him.

"Right, I'll see to it. Oh, and I was looking over your notes on how you managed to obliviate all of us, and I think that if you just get a memory with yourself in it then activate the Protean charm again it'll restore everything." he said.

"Thank you sir, I'll go do that now."

0o0o0

The Halloween party was in full swing when she arrived at the Weasley's house. Fred and George were over by the food table, so Hermione gave it a wide berth. Ginny, Luna, and Mrs. Weasley were sitting by the bonfire while Bill, Charlie, Ron, and Harry were playing a pickup game of quidditch. Mr. Weasley was in the shed, and Neville was checking on a frightening looking plant, with seed pods shaped like skulls.

"Oh, Hermione," Mrs. Weasley called out. "It's so nice that you were able to leave the Ministry early. Percy's still there, but he'll be home in half an hour."

Hermione smiled. "Sorry, but I can't stay very long. I actually was wondering if I could borrow one of your memories, one of me."

"Does this have something to do with why Harry can't remember you?" Ginny asked. "'Cause he got back from work yesterday ranting about this fan named Hermione who accosted him at work."

Luna laughed, pulling out her wand and drawing out a memory. "I'm sure Hermione will be able to fix it."

Hermione quickly bottled Luna's memory then, after telling everyone she would be back soon, returned to the Department of Mysteries, using the invisibility cloak to sneak in.

It was the work of a moment to place the memory in the brain, and, crossing her fingers and believing with all her might that it would work, Hermione activated the Protean charm.

There was no one working in the brain room today; on Halloween Unspeakables worked in the love room, as it was the only day of the year that it was safe to access that room. Therefore, there was no one to test whether or not the spell had worked.

Hermione returned to her office in order to retrieve the paperwork for Sirius. She didn't bother with the invisibility cloak; she was hoping someone would recognize her. People nodded at her on her way to Malfoy's office, but no one greeted her by name.

"Malfoy," she said as a greeting when she got to his desk.

He raised his eyebrows. "Did you finish those forms already Granger?"

It worked! Hermione could have danced, she was so happy. Instead, she gave Malfoy a bright, happy smile, which clearly unnerved him. "I did. Happy Halloween."

She dumped the papers on his desk and practically ran back to the Floo. She had a Halloween party to get to.


End file.
